Self-Isolation Audiobook - The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home

• Title And Author: The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
• Publisher: Orbit
• Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Audiobook
• Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Bought
• Length: 384 Pages or 9 Hours 13 Minutes

It’s been a while since I listened to the podcast, Welcome to Night Vale. But I always say it’s one of my fave podcasts as it has that level of creep, unnerve and yet a big hearted and very diverse! One of the fans’s favourite character is The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home. She tried (and failed) to become the town’s Mayor and little is known about her barring her living in your home, in every home. Though, in an episode The April Monologues, she says “I haven’t begged since I was a child aboard that wicked ship. Those men didn’t listen either … which is the reason I lived at the bottom of the ocean for so many years before this place, this desert, this town, this apartment…” 

So, who is/was she? How did she come to Night Vale? This book gives the answers as this book goes back in 19th century Europe and slowly pieces her past together with the present as she guides, haunts and sabotages a young man called Craig…

I’m having real trouble writing this up (nearly 2 hours, folks. TWO HOURS!) as, on the one hand, it delivered answers to questions fans have been wanting answered for years. But, on the other hand, it didn’t deliver that level of creepiness and uneasy I relate to Night Vale as, sometimes, not knowing is more terrifying than knowing. 

I listened to the audiobook (I think this is the best way to consume this story as Night Vale is a podcast) and Mara Wilson (the voices of the Faceless Old Woman who Secretly Lives In Your Home on the podcast) delivers in her reading. She’s flawless in this. 

I feel very “meh” about this story and I can’t explain really why. I think it’s because I was expecting something much creepy and uneasy from her backstory and it didn’t deliver. Plus, I think once one or two truths are revealed, some smart readers will figure out why the Faceless Old Woman’s reason for being in Night Vale and her interest in Craig. 

Or maybe this is the a sign I need to stop reading books written or inspired by podcasts. I never get on with them and, seeing as I was kinda excited over this one, I feel letdown.